Follow-ups: Ice-cubes

* Coke icecubes don't sink
* Saturated sugar icecubes *do*, however, although (a) I wouldn't swear to anything regarding their enthalpy and (b) they look very weird.
* In fact, in all honesty, the best solution for "ice cubes attacking your nose" is just to only use one or two, and everything's fine. That would only actually fail if you want to leave it standing a long time.
* However, I think the marble thing is very cool, so want to try it out of all proportion to the extent that it solves the issues I described[Dagger].

ETA: http://www.flashingblinkylights.com/lightup-products-lighted-cubes-c-114_77.html is an example of the other suggestion, that light-up cubes can probably be made to sink, or even be neutrally buoyant.

Follow-ups: Pullman

Pullman

* I think "God is bad, therefore doesn't exist" is a humorous paraphrasing and simplification of how many people, including me, saw the books [expanded below] whether or not they agreed with it, or the books intended it.

* However, I assumed Pullman intended that, but it seems quite probably not. Not everything is covered by what an author says, but from interviews eg. http://www.thirdway.org.uk/past/showpage.asp?page=3949 it sounds like it was deliberately anti-organised-church but not anti-god.

* He also specified that there was a deliberate portrayal of the bad aspects of organised religion, which he does feel are sometimes overwhelming in this world, but that there would naturally be good churchmen in that world (and there certainly are in this, he describes as a child knowing a very unobjectionable, nice sort of church community) even if he didn't portray any in the books.

* He described God as, if I interpret correctly, plainly to him absent from current influence on the world, but may or may not be out there somewhere.

Wanting to believe

A lot of interesting views arose from the discussion. Specifically, the relationship between wanting to believe and believing. Several people pointed out (with very articulate, interesting views, actually, thanks) that a common progression might be someone becoming disillusioned with God, and then naturally progressing to being a hard no-evidence-occam's-razor-doesn't exist atheist. And conversely, an appeal of the idea ("Maybe there never was any Narnia, but I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't,") certainly is part of people believing it.

For that matter, in real life, people often believe things they want to be true -- apart from normal statistical difficulties, if you're examining a complex social or card-play situation, you often seize on the chance you want to be true, and almost expect it, although a sober calculation would lead you to expect otherwise.

Which is normal, but I don't think sensible, it'd be better not to if you could (in most situations). However, I don't think that's all that's going on with religion, I have an instinctive feeling that the progressions I describes *do* make sense in some way, but can't explain what.

Can anyone expand on that?

ETA: cf. [dagger]

The underlying point of the previous post

I described Narnia, in the ways it talks about Christianity, as potentially being described by two thrusts:

(a) Factual, painting a picture of how God could goodly, justly, etc run a world
(b) Emotional, explaining why we might want to live in such a world

And that correspondingly, the Northern Lights argument (that Pullman maybe didn't intend, but many people saw) might be described as:

(a) Factual, drawing attention to the problems of a world where people follow a God who isn't there
(b) Emotional, comparing the situation with the authority to this world, that God (in this argument) appears absent and non-intervening, so if he exists, is as disastrous as the situation with the authority.
(c) And conflating not liking the evolved conception of God with not thinking he exists
(d) And for that matter, having an uplifting metaphor of instead of *rejecting* god, having to successfully *rebel* against God.

(And if that seems complicated or potentially flawed, well exactly, that's the point I was making, that's why people seeing the books in that light feel uncomfortable about it.)

However, despite many people seeing them more as anti-church than anti-god, some people said they *did* feel more atheist afterwards, or at least more sympathetic. If anyone's willing to share, how did you think you saw the argument -- more atheist as in less organised-religion-y, or less theistic, and if so, does my description make any sense to you?

Replies later, but ETA:

Does anyone know, "Job: A Comedy of Justice" by Heinlien? I thought it was funny, but weird. However, I just remembered it as that was a one-view-of-Christian-theology that seemed to share God-sucks with being perceived as an atheist position (at least by me).

Report, day 2

We had travelled for a day across the gentle plains of the valley, sweeping down from the low crests behind us before rising to the dizzying ascent of the craggy sides of the Mountain. I felt Hillary or Scott would have given his life to be where we were going, and yet I think we would have given ours not to.

In the late afternoon of the second day, Johnson's stego crunched something brittle underfoot. She covered us with the rifle, and we al dismounted to examine it.

Kicking aside grass and scrub with our boots, we revealed a vast set of bones. Even to my untrained eye saw they resembled that of a dinosaur forefoot of the more prehensile sort, except that firstly each finger, claw or talon bone (however they would be designated) was the size of a full-grown human, the entire foot being nearly the size of a stego; and secondly, one of the claws was rotated relative to the others, and with a shiver I imagined it closing, the scrape and clack of bone if the vast hand grasped blindly at long-dead prey.

I tuned back in to the professor's lecture in time to hear her confirming my diagnosis. The claw was opposable, and the technical jargon corresponded with that of a dinosaur.

Janice pounced on this weakness, and asked if it was certainly the remains of a live dinosaur, or might have occurred in some other (unspecified) way. But the professor was already busy answering the question.

Directing us to hold ready various tobacco pouches and canteens she had made us each carry, she produced from the packs on her stego a small bird, one of several she had captured and stunned before entering the valley.

Now with a typically academic regret -- I was sure Clive, Johnson or I would not have hesitated -- she efficiently snapped its neck and bashed it against the largest bone.

A flicker of orange and yellow light flared and disappeared, and the bones acquired a faint pearly glow. I was immediately reminded of mystical experiences in the opium dens of the orient, but the reassuring orange glow of the low sun gleamed overhead, and I was forced to admit the professor seemed to have had a point here too.

[Much of the follow paragraphs are smudged, as if the paper was handled brusquely when wet. Some fragments are clear.] ...d ancient race that [....] ...r time the mountain had been a [..] of mystical and [...] continue in the direction a... [....]

[......] shuddered [...] bone swung at [...] ...ggling to raise itself from the gr [...] ...rapped Clive, and Janice and I rushed forward to pry [...] no great sinews to provide that strength but [....]

[.....] ...scattered the ashes of the remains of our last few dinners, [..] the cremated remains of purified saurians [..] flared and went [..] heads to the departing spark of the bird, thanking it for its service.

We stood, breathing heavily, trying to grasp the import of what we'd seen. Clearly for no saurian nor mammal of this region was death the clear-cut dividing line we had come to know. But not even the professor had a clear idea of the differences between the even vaster saurians of legend and those now suffering whatever strange diseases of the mind we had seen.